Today’s description of Brunswick, Maine in the Wall Street Journal has me thinking.  It is so odd to see a town “profiled” in a retirement discussion where I was raised, sold newspapers, marched in the Memorial Day parade (as did my children) and graduated from high school.  Does Brunswick really only have 21,000 people?  Did the Wall Street Journal writer know just how hard it was to work nights at that mill (now a pub and my doctor’s office) that is pictured on the river?  Or how high the unwashed dishes got in the Stowe House the night that I sliced my hand scrubbing a glass jar?  (at least the owner didn’t make me punch out before taking me to the hospital). Or that my family still laughs at the time I absurdly declaimed “I know Brunswick like the back of my hand!” when lost on the Hackett Road?

 Or that my boyhood neighbor Margie Libby (age 89) died just last week?

 Many of my friends lament to me that the place where they were raised has been obliterated by cement and new houses and lost open spaces and sprawl.  I suppose that they’d be envious of a place where connection is not just a possibility but a requirement.

 All places have their stories and Brunswick holds many of mine, but I’m not quite ready to retire.  There is just too much left to do.